Round 5: GMR Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. May 12 - 13.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 5: GMR Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway. May 12 - 13.

This weekend will be the 9th running of this event during the Month of May, though in 2020, the IndyCar Harvest Grand Prix double-header was held on October 2nd and 3rd because of race cancellations to the original calendar, due to the Covid pandemic. With the pandemic still affecting the 2021 calendar, an additional round, the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix was held on August 14th.

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History
On October 1, 2013, after a feasibility test previously held in September, it was announced that an IndyCar race for 2014 would be held on the GP Circuit, either as a "doubleheader" event in May prior to the Indy 500,
or as a stand-alone race in the autumn/fall. Up until the announcement IndyCar hadn't raced on the GP Circuit, though Indy Lights had four times.

The inaugural race was held on May 10, 2014 and was won by Simon Pagenaud, driving a Dallara DW12- Honda HI14RTT for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. The race featured a standing start, something IndyCar had
tried out for a couple of races during the previous season. The standing start was not without incident, as Pole sitter Sebastián Saavedra stalled when the lights went out and his car was rear ended by Carlos Munoz's and Mikhail Aleshin's cars, showering the track with carbon-fibre and forcing a restart.

It was decided that from 2015 onwards, the race would have a conventional rolling start. Despite that, the start of each race has been barely without incident.

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Some Trivia: Driver with the most wins:
Simon Pagenaud, 2014, 2016, 2019
Will Power, 2015, 2017, 2018.

Team with the most wins:
Team Penske, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.

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Track layout
The layout is a modified version of the one previously used for the F1 United States Grand Prix, which was held from 2000 - 2007 and by MotoGP from 2008 to 2015. The race is run clockwise, the opposite direction to the Indianapolis 500.

F1 Course, 2000-2007


IndyCar Road Course


Length:
2.439 Miles (3.925 Km)

Turns: 14

Lap record:
Will Power, May 12, 2017. 1:07.704, 129.69 Mph (208.44 Km/h).
Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet IndyCar V6.
Verizon IndyCar Series.

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Last Year's Race:
https://www.indycar.com/news/2022/05/05-14-gmrgp-race

Pole:
Will Power,
Team Penske,
Dallara IR18-Chevrolet Indy V6

Winner:
Colton Herta,
Andretti Autosport w/ Curb Agajanian,
Dallara IR18-Honda HI22TT Indy V6,

Laps: 85
Distance: 207.315 Miles / 333.641 Km
Race Time: 2:01:56.3273
Average Speed: 90.008 Mph (144.854 Km/h)
Fastest Lap: Colton Herta - Andretti Autosport w/ Curb Agajanian. Lap 31, 70.8767 sec. 122.389 Mph, (196.966 km/h)

Caution periods: 8
Laps: 6 - 8, 17 - 19, 21 - 23, 36 - 40, 42 - 44, 57 - 65, 67 - 69, 74 - 75.

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Practice and Qualifications:

Practice 1
Friday, May 12
9:30 AM - 10:45 AM ET

Practice 2
Friday, May 12
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 1 Group 1
Friday, May 12
4:00 PM - 4:10 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 1 Group 2
Friday, May 12
4:20 PM - 4:30 PM ET

Qualifications - Round 2
Friday, May 12
4:40 PM - 4:50 PM ET

Qualifications - Firestone Fast 6
Friday, May 12
5:00 PM - 5:15 PM ET

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Race broadcast:
NBC, 13 May, 3:30pm ET, 7:30pm UTC, 8:30pm BST
Sky Sports F1, 8:30pm BST

[mstets]

Thanks for the intro. Here are Group one and two results.

[Adam43]

Stingy in 11th. Good stuff. Misses out though.

As does Grosjean!

[mstets]

Fast 12 results.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Christian Lundgaard on getting Pole.

[mstets]

Great job by the whole RLL team.

[Adam43]

Good job.

And there are some quick drivers that aren’t so quick. Should be fun.

[joeb]

And McLaren puts 2 drivers in top 5 with Rossi down in 9th

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying Result:


An excellent result for RLLR, they've gradually been improving. I can't remember if Jack Harvey has qualified in the Fast 6 before. Another good showing for Arrows McLaren. Both Ganassi and Andretti Autosport have drivers in the Fast 6. Not too sure what happened to Team Penske, otherwise this has the makings for a good race tomorrow.

[Adam43]

Sting Ray. Fastest rookie (who didn’t get through to the 2nd elimination road).

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Qualifying Result:


An excellent result for RLLR, they've gradually been improving. I can't remember if Jack Harvey has qualified in the Fast 6 before. Another good showing for Arrows McLaren. Both Ganassi and Andretti Autosport have drivers in the Fast 6. Not too sure what happened to Team Penske, otherwise this has the makings for a good race tomorrow.

The interesting thing about these times for me is that the entire field is much closer and more competitive than F1 or F2.
The spread of the fast 12 is 0.8552 from Lundgaard to Power.
If you were 0.8551 off pole at Miami GP, you would be 4th on the grid. Only Perez, Alonso and Sainz would be faster.
Similarly, the spread from front to back, to Pedersen in 27th, is only 1.2558 seconds to 27th place.
Well. being that much slower than pole in Miami would have earned you 13th on the grid if you hadn't made it out of Q2, a lap faster than Hamilton.
If you had made it to Q3 you would have been in P9, because Max and Bottas didn't set a time.
Similarly if we compared time differences with F2 the Power time difference would have placed you in 11th, meaning the front half of the field in F2 is similarly concentrated.
But the Pedersen gap would have placed you 14th in the field meaning the talent drops away a lot more quickly F2 than in Indy car because in F2 they all have the same chassis and power plant and tyres.

Its a very simplistic evaluation but it is reasonably consistent in most of the races tso far this season for all three categories so it can be taken as a general indicator of the relative closeness of the field.

When we think someone qualifying in Indycar in 18th or 22nd are doing badly, in actual fact they are still doing much better relative to the people closer to the front than people in F1 or F2 are relative to the pole sitter in the other 2 categories.
The Indy car field is much, much, more competitive and it is a much more difficult category to advance in because the field is much tighter than F1 or F2.

[Mogster]

Probably stating the obvious but Miami Gardens is a much longer track than Indy GP, so any gaps will be extended over additional lap time. Field spread always appears much less at the shorter F1 tracks like RBR also.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Qualifying Result:


An excellent result for RLLR, they've gradually been improving. I can't remember if Jack Harvey has qualified in the Fast 6 before. Another good showing for Arrows McLaren. Both Ganassi and Andretti Autosport have drivers in the Fast 6. Not too sure what happened to Team Penske, otherwise this has the makings for a good race tomorrow.

Harvey qualified 6th in the 2020 Harvest GP at IMS, and 3rd at the GMR race in 2021. I think there may be another or two but I didn't check any farther.

There wasn't much comment about tires during the broadcasts. Drivers seemed to get quick times out of used reds in qualifying but I am wondering how long they will last. Sounds like rain could be in the mix as well.

[bjohnsonsmith]

The start of this race is always a bit hairy but it was a clean one this time.

[bjohnsonsmith]

First FCY, looks like Sting Ray and Malukas made contact.